Contributors to the Never Will I Ever (and then I had kids!) anthology

Our 32 Amazing Essayists!

You can find Leighann at Multitasking Mumma where she writes about allergy awareness, mental health advocacy, and family hilarity. Leighann has been published in the book Surviving Mental Illness Through Humor and she has been featured in Mamalode and BonBon Break. She lives happily with her husband and daughter in Ontario Canada where she works full time while pursuing her writing career.

Nadia Ali is a freelance writer who was born in London, UK and now resides in the Caribbean. Her work has been published online and in print. Her writing credits include Oxford University Press, Time Out London and Chicken Soup for the Soul. She is blessed to be a Supermom to two daughters – Shazara and Raisah. Her supermom cape has seen her through the growing years, starting from birth all the way through to the university years. As a contributor to Lose the Cape, she is happy to share one of her supermom stories full of love, laughter and tears.

Find her online at: http://nadia-ali.weebly.com/

Twitter: @NadiaAwriter

Julia Arnold

Julia lives in Minnesota with her husband and two young children. She writes about the less glamorous side of motherhood on her blog, Frantic Mama. She has also contributed to various publications, such as Mamalode, Scary Mommy, and What the Flicka, as well as to the anthologies, Clash of the Couples: A Humorous Collection of Completely Absurd Lovers’ Squabbles and Relationship Spats and Only Trollops Shave Above the Knee: The Crazy, Brilliant, and Unforgettable Lessons We’ve Learned from Our Mothers. You can find her on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/FranticMama.

Andrea Bates

Andrea is a native New Yorker living in NC who has become accustomed to wearing flip flops year-round. An LCSW, she spends much of her free time volunteering to support women in various stages of motherhood. Andrea blogs at goodgirlgoneredneck.com, where she shares the ins and outs of parenting, family and relationships all while juggling life with her husband, daughter, dogs, cats and trillions of dust bunnies. She is an avid reader, necklace collector and self-proclaimed queen of all the selfies. She truly hopes to find a clear surface in her house in the coming decade. Find her on social media @goodgirlgonered.

Nichole Cancellare

Nichole Cancellare is a writer, chef-in-training, wife, and SAHM of three. After leaving the unglamorous world of weather forecasting not for television, she pursued her present career where she would not be relied on to accurately predict the future. However, she is still second-guessed constantly. She is passionate about cooking, eating, reading, photography, and traveling and blogs about it at sauntersavorserve.com. While not taking care of her brood, volunteering, or attending culinary school, she is either in the planning phase for an upcoming trip or out executing one. As a result, little time is left for writing or taking part in social media, Twitter: @ngmayo and Instagram:@gigigimayo, but she is trying to find it. She is a proud Air Force spouse and is currently stationed with her family in Columbus, MS.

Allison Barrett Carter

Allison Barrett Carter is a freelance writer in North Carolina. She is on a journey to keep learning and finding the best life, documenting it all on her website (http://allisonbarrettcarter.com). Her pieces have appeared in many places such as New York Times’ Motherlode, Washington Post’s On Parenting, Role Reboot, The Good Men Project and in several print anthologies as well as various local news outlets. Follow her on Twitter or on her Facebook page.

R. Catalano

R. Catalano is a writer and mother of one evil mastermind living in Brooklyn, NY. She blogs about her daughter at www.zoevstheuniverse.com. She is a contributor to The Bigger Book of Parenting Tweets, and her humorous essays have appeared on Scary Mommy, In the Powder Room, MockMom, Sammiches and Psych Meds, Mamapedia, and HaHas for HooHahs. She is also working on a novel called Becoming the Girl Detective. You can follow her on Twitter at @zoevsuniverse and on Facebook at Zoe vs. the Universe.

Jennifer Collins

Jennifer Collins is a mom with a day job and she’s married to the love of her life. They’re raising two great kids and a goofy dog, too. Life gets messy sometimes and she likes to write about their victories and messes along the way on her website, Graceful Mess. Her work has also been featured on BlogHer, Club Mid at Scary Mommy, Mamapedia, Sammiches and Psych Meds, and Daddy Doin’ Work. You can follow her on Twitter at @GracefulMessME and on Facebook.

Crystal Cook

Crystal Cook, otherwise known as Qwietpleez on the interwebs, goes by many names, most notably, Mommy. Proud wife and mother four, she is an Autism Warrior Momma and advocate for those with special needs and their families.

She writes about about life and love, the good and the bad, the serious and the silly over at The Qwiet Muse to retain what is left of her sanity. Sometimes to make some spare change for venti iced coffees, she occasionally writes about other things. You can also find her hanging out on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/theqwietmuse or on Twitter @qwietpleez. You can read more of Crystal’s musings on sites such as Sammiches and Psych Meds, Project Underblog, and The Mighty.

She is new(ish) to blogging and socializing, and is a recent and reluctant hashtag user, which she stubbornly maintains should be referred to as an octothorpe. Her hobbies include sleeping in and defending the oxford comma.

Victoria Fedden

Victoria Fedden is a writer who lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with her husband and daughter. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Florida Atlantic University in 2009 and since then her work has appeared in Real Simple, Chicken Soup for the Soul and many anthologies. She is a regular contributor to websites like Scary Mommy, elephant journal, Babble, and the Huffington Post. Her memoir This is Not My Beautiful Life will be published by Picador USA Summer 2016.

Miranda Gargasz

Miranda Gargasz is an essayist from Ohio. She is the author of Lemonade and Holy Stuff and a contributor to the anthology Only Trollops Shave Above the Knee. Her work has appeared on many popular parenting sites like Scary Mommy, The Mid, Huffington Post and The Christian Science Monitor. You can find her blogging at mirandagargasz.com and at plussizemama.com.

Follow her on Twitter @MirandaGargasz and Facebook at Miranda Gargasz, Writer.

April Grant

April Grant is a lawyer, wife and mother in Florida. She is working to make the world a better place through international and local not for profit organizations, her blog (http://aprilnoelle.com) and her podcast, (Run Your World). Follow her on Twitter, Instagram or on her Facebook page @ theaprilnoelle.

She’s still trying to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up but knows that anything involving Margaritas is a top choice. Raising a

granddaughter, caring for a father who lives in her yard and making sure her husband has clean underwear for all his travels keeps her pretty busy, but she still has time to scope out recipes she’ll never make on Pinterest, answer comments from fans on Facebook and pretend she knows what she’s talking about at the occasional business meeting.

Michelle Grewe

Michelle Grewe is a Mom, Air Force Veteran, Monster Hit man, 20 Questions Master, Human Jungle Gym, and a terrible driver. She paints, blogs at Crumpets and Bollocks and The Write Moms, runs Women of Ill Repute, plays piano badly, and dabbles in t-shirt design and fontography. She doesn’t fold underwear, and she eats loads of gluten. She is published in: Only Trollops Shave Above the Knee, Motherhood May Cause Drowsiness, Clash of the Couples, Mom for the Holidays, and The Underachiever’s Guide to Perfect Holidays. She has been featured on websites such as Popsugar, Mamalode, Blunt Moms, and BlogHer.

Andrea Isiminger

If Andrea Isiminger could have predicted her future, she would have chosen Spanish over German in high school. While her expat experiences in Argentina and Spain have been exciting, communicating in a second language has been a constant challenge. Craving a freedom of expression that wasn’t limited by the number of verbs she could conjugate, Andrea turned to writing. Her work has appeared both online and in print (Mamalode, Andrea Reads America, Transitions Abroad and anthologies by Writers Abroad – 2012 & 2013). Currently she is awaiting the appearance of her essay in the upcoming anthology Reflections on Raising a Special Needs Child by Monkey Star Press.

Kristi Koumentakos is a middle-aged wife and mother who recently reentered the workforce nearly 10 years after the birth of her youngest child, a boy, also known in her house as “the mother of all midlife surprises”. She is also a lapsed MSW, a highly sensitive introvert, a doubting believer, and a HARDCORE Springsteen fan. She started blogging in September 2014 to fulfill a promise made to her college-bound daughter, and while she’s still not sure whether to thank her daughter or to smack her, it’s been quite an adventure so far. She is a Listen To Your Mother 2015 alumna and this is her first contribution to an anthology. You can read more from Kristi at https://idobelieveitstimeforanotheradventure.wordpress.com/

Jeanine Lebsack:

I’m Jeanine a stay at and work from home happily married Mom, of two children. I work as a transcriptionist and Beach Body fitness coach, and I’m an up and coming author of my own passion project. I’m an avid reader and writer and my family is my inspiration to be able to share my journey. I’m on a never ending quest to write about this wild, crazy, and beautiful world I live in. I’m a parent of a child with special needs who advocates for my light and my loves, while being supported by my amazing husband. I’ve been called a walking dictionary of medical terminology who finds joy from loving and learning from my children. The best thing I’ve ever done is bring them into the world and be their Mom.You can follow along on my journey here: Blog-http://jsackblog.wordpress.com

Lisa René LeClair is a writer, humorist, social media junkie and mom who shares childhood stories and bad advice for your amusement at Sassypiehole. She is also a co-author in several anthologies and a contributor to numerous online publications, including Scary Mommy, Redbook, Good Housekeeping and Town & Country. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Elly Lonon

When her oncologist suggested learning a new language to help recover from chemo brain, Elly chose to learn HTML which led to the creation of her blog, BugginWord.com. Her writing has been featured at Scary Mommy, Your Tango, Sammiches and Psych Meds,Sex Is, and a disappointing number of now defunct sites. When she’s not torturing ukuleles on her YouTube Channel (youtube.com/bugginword) you can follow her every move on Twitter (@BugginWord). She really, really hates writing in the first person.

Melodic Rose

Melodic Rose is a spoken word artist from Montreal. She has written poetry for 15 years. She believes that poetry should be a transcendent experience. That true poetry comes from artistic and emotional vulnerability and at the heart of it, should reflect the distinct voices and nuances of the human experience. Melodic Rose hopes to reflect this philosophy through her work, by producing art that is unbound by the confines of race, gender or political affiliation but will continue to challenge and inspire others to live with complete authenticity.

Holly Rust

Holly Rust is a native Texan but is currently living (and freezing) in the great city of Chicago with her husband and two sons. Aside from chasing around two lunatic toddlers all day, she is a professional writer and author. She enjoys blogging about motherhood shenanigans on her humor blog, Mother’s Guide To Sanity, which was featured on The TODAY Show’s List of Funniest Parents on Facebook. She is also a regular contributing writer for the Huffington Post, Scary Mommy, The TODAY Parenting Team, Hearst Digital Media and many more. Follow her random thoughts on Facebook and Twitter – but no judging.

Rebecca Einstein Schorr

Rebecca Einstein Schorr lives in the Lehigh Valley, PA, where she writes about the intersection of life between the sacred and not-yet-sacred. Her work has appeared in such online places as The Christian Science Monitor, The Mid, Kveller, and Tablet. Though never getting lice as a kid, she has more than made up for it by getting it each and every time one of her kids brought it home. Read more over at This Messy Life or engage with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Tessa Shull

Tessa Shull is a lactation station, personal assistant to a threenager and so-so wife who resides in the heart of America–forever Royal. Her writing has been featured in ALIVE Magazine, Storyteller, MotoFuze and Examiner. Her boob has appeared on Buzzfeed (#brelfie) and her face on Northeast News. You can check out her family and lifestyle blog, Homemade Experience, at homemadeexperience.com or follow her on facebook.com/homemadeexperience or Twitter, @homemadeexp.

Ali Solomon

Ali Solomon is an art teacher and cartoonist who lives in NYC with her husband and two wee daughters. She likes to draw cartoons of babies (and sometimes babies draw cartoons of her). You can find her work on the Huffington Post, NickMom, Scary Mommy, In The Powder Room, and numerous other parenting sites. Read more of her ridiculous nonsense at Wiggle Room or @AliCoaster.

Julie Vick

Julie Vick is an English Instructor at the University of Colorado Denver. Her work has appeared in Washington Post’s On Parenting, Country Living, The Christian Science Monitor, Brain, Child, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. Read more of her writing at julievick.com or follow her on twitter @vickjulie

Mandy Waysman

Mandy Waysman is a blogger, wife, and mom to two daughters. You can find her work on the Huffington Post, Scary Mommy, In The Powder Room, BonBon Break, humorwriters.org and other parenting sites. She is a regular contributor on Sammiches & Psych Meds.

I am the proud single parent of a nine year old autistic son. I have had a career in the entertainment industry for thirty years. I have worked in the areas of ballet, opera, theater, rock and roll and circus. I spent thirteen years touring around the world with Cirque du Soleil over five continents. My son was born at circus and toured with me until he was five years old which is when we needed to leave the circus to find school for him. I am now embarking on writing about my life experiences especially about the bond between my son and me. I currently work for Emerson College as a manager in the Office of the Arts.

Megan Woolsey

Megan Woolsey lives in Northern California with her family of six, including triplets and a vivacious big sister. She is is co-writing and publishing an anthology due out in spring called Multiples Illuminated, all about the wonderful world of raising multiples. Megan’s essays have been published in Huffington Post, Scary Mommy, The Mid, XOJane, Mamalode, BLUNTmoms, Bonbon Break, Role Reboot, and Erma Bombeck’s Writer’s Workshop. She has an essay published in the anthology, It’s Really 10 Month Special Delivery. She also authors the blog, The Hip Mothership where she talks about parenting children in a time of iDevices and helicopter parenting.When she isn’t sweating it out in hot yoga or writing her next article, Megan is seeking out the perfect glass of red wine that doesn’t render a hangover. When Megan needs a break from the kids, you can find her perusing her social media pages, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Tandra Wilderson

Tandra Wilkerson, also known as Thriller Mom, is a resident of North Carolina. She is a writer, lover of humor, hider of chocolate, mom to two girls, and loving nagger to a patient man. You can find her over-sharing on her blog at www.thrillermom.blogspot.com, freelancing, and contributing to upcoming anthologies.Writing keeps her out of padded rooms! Catch up with Tandra on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/thrillermom/, Twitter @ThrillerMom, Pinterest, and YouTube.